Thursday, May 21, 2009

Hong Kong

Almost a week without any updates and the reason is the lack of time and cards. So far, i've only received 2 cards this week. One of them is this one from Hong Kong.

And from the other side of the world, i've received this Hong Kong card with the floating population sent by Licia.
I didn't find information about this floating population but Licia helped with that ;)
"The Boat people or Tankas is an ethnic group in China that has traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, and Hainan provinces, as well as Hong Kong and Macau. Though many now live onshore, some members of the older generations still live on their narrow boats and pursue their traditional livelihood of fishing. Originally the Tankas were a non-Chinese ethnic group and were classified by the Qing government as "mean". The Yongzheng Emperor freed them and several other "mean" groups from this status in a series of edicts from 1723 to 1731. They mostly worked as fishermen and tended to gather at some bays. Some built markets or villages on the shore, while others continued to live on their junks or boats. The Tankas arrived in Hong Kong around the 7-9th century from the Malay Oceanic. As Hong Kong developed, some of the fishing grounds in Hong Kong became badly polluted or were reclaimed, and so became land. Those Tankas who only own small boats and cannot fish far out to sea are forced to stay inshore in bays, gathering together like floating villages." - in: wikipedia

3 comments:

Licia said...

Marta :)
We called the floating population 'Tanka', here its article on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanka_(ethnic_group):D I think the 'floating population' in the article you quoted means 'mobile population' instead of people live on water. :)

Licia said...

PS. great to know my card arrived safely to you. ;)

Shaunna said...

Boise is a nice little city :)Glad you like the card!! :D